The prancing phantoms and ghosts of my rude forefathers

Up my, my family tree,
No blue blood, no nobility;
No trace of aristocracy -
Except for Uncle Sebastian
Who once raped a duchess.
My Family Tree - Jake Thackray

Unlike the stalwart Mr Thackray I cannot claim an ancestry untouched by privilege. In fact, I recently discovered that my distant predecessor the Honourable Charles Hamilton was no less a personage than the inventor of the ornamental hermit. Horace Walpole was dismissive of the idea, saying it was foolish to put aside a quarter of one's garden to be melancholy in. Pooh to the workaday doubters of this world! I shall be melancholy in as large a portion of my garden as I see fit.
The whole issue of ornamental hermits has been done to death, but I could not deny you the story of one charming personage, to be found in the pages of Edith Sitwell's English Eccentrics -
an unnamed amateur hermit possessed of twenty hats and twelve suits of clothes, each emblazoned with an allegorical device. Two of the best are the 'patent teapot: to draw out the flavour of the tea best - Union and Goodwill' and the 'Wash-Basin of Reform'. One hat even had four mottoes embroidered around it - 'Bless Feed', 'Good Allowance', 'Well Clothed', and 'All Working Men'. As Ms Sitwell remarks - 'you may imagine the sensation aroused by these aspirations expressed in millinery'. This individual lived in a large allegorical garden, in the middle of which hung an elaborate effigy of the Pope, and cultivated a long white beard. We shall not see his like again.

Another of my ancestors, the famous Anchovey Hamiltonne, preempted the Hermit craze of a later century by living for several months in the grounds of a nearby stately home, accosting visiting noblemen for money and neglecting to shave. He was beaten soundly by a local blacksmith, and ejected from the county. It is a terrible thing to be ahead of one's time.